Our view: Fracking isn't Fort Collins' battle

Other communities are ringed by scores of wells, but not Fort Collins. Vote against Question 2A.

Oct. 26, 2013

At a time when misinformation is being parceled out to all of us, let’s start this discussion with a simple fact: Nearly 90 percent of Fort Collins is already off limits to any sort of oil and gas drilling — fracking or otherwise. And the remaining 10 percent doesn’t have all that much oil underneath it in the first place.

Other communities find themselves ringed by scores of wells, potentially sending up high volumes of emissions, but Fort Collins has been largely exempt from the boom due to the lack of resources beneath our homes.

You wouldn’t know it to hear both sides of the fracking debate firing off their heaviest artillery around Question 2A.

The battle over whether Fort Collins should declare a 5-year moratorium on fracking has gotten nasty. In interviews with both groups, each pointed out fallacies in the others’ arguments while telling partial truths of their own.

Fort Collins Alliance for Reliable Energy points to an “unfunded mandate” hidden in Question 2A in the form of a required study on the effects of fracking, but those who framed the ballot language stated that the funding is already there in an upcoming state-commissioned study, and that no additional local study should be needed. And FARE repeatedly says this should be a Fort Collins decision, yet 99.96 percent of its funding comes from oil and gas lobbyists from outside of Fort Collins.

On the other side, Citizens for a Healthy Fort Collins claim it is not “anti-fracking,” but rather “pro-health.” If the group’s chief purpose was to go after the city’s biggest polluters, though, it would find oil and gas operations in town near the bottom of the list of offenders, well below a brewery and our power plant — possibly even our cars.

What both camps won’t tell you is that the whole question put to voters is largely a nonissue for Fort Collins. The ballot question is being framed as a public opinion poll for or against fracking. That’s a fine gesture, but the vote inside the city doesn’t change the status of wells being drilled in Weld County, or even those just on the other side of the city line.

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If Fort Collins were surrounded by wells, as Longmont or Erie is today, we could endorse the community taking a strong stance to protect their health through improving air and water quality.

But we resent being used as a pawn in what could be a potentially costly environmental position statement just for the sake of a handful of wells on our city’s perimeter.

If Citizens for a Healthy Fort Collins wants to truly find solutions, it would push city leaders toward commissioning an air quality study in neighborhoods near the few wells in Fort Collins. If problems are found using real, local data — not just emotion — that’s the time to ask voters to ban the practice in our city.

Through our previous editorials, it should be clear that this board has many questions as to the safety of fracking and disposal of fracking fluid.

But we still ask the residents of Fort Collins to vote against Question 2A.

You might not like the process of fracking, and we respect your opinion. But do not confuse this vote with an opinion poll on fracking

Asking for a further moratorium in a city where it’s barely an issue smacks of agenda-based partisanship.

Environmentalists and drilling proponents alike are using our city boundaries and our election process as a battleground to wage a war that isn’t ours. If we’re serious about improving health, let’s first study the air and water quality around the small number of wells in Fort Collins before adding more laws to the books that would be better suited for other communities.